DomainStick

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Good first attempt! WordPress is magical, isn’t it? It just lets you dive right in. To really explore its visual breadth, however, you may want to expand and explore themes that you have to purchase. Check out Prestige theme – sold through Theme Forest. I use the light version on my site – DomainStick.com – but the dark version is gorgeous and it comes with literally hundreds of skins. You can play around with the sample version online before you commit to it. I hope I get to use it some day.

I agree with some of the other posts – you need a logo and better graphics. I would play up “Stevie Ray” and give second billing to the word Entertainment. Is this a tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughn?

Your categories are a bit confusing and not well organized. Is there a way to express the content with single words? And having the Site Navigation sidebar so close to the horizontal navigation seems redundant. Use the sidebar for a tag cloud or a twitter feed. Or show us more images here.

Overall, the site also conveys mixed messages. The top looks like a rockers site, but the other images show us wedding scenes. Maybe the top image needs to be an accordion format with four or five images illustrating the different areas of interest equally. Show us Weddings, Concerts, a Teen Party, and a Baby Shower side by side (I just made those up). Maybe each type of event is color coded so from the outset we understand how your site is organized.

Well, best of luck. Kudos for jumping in head first!

best,

Robert

I absolutely love your site, the concept, name, logo, etc. The places where I could see improvement concerns accessibility and visual sustenance. Your site is strongest in the upper left-hand corner. It is weakest in the lower right-hand corner. It peters out into gray backgrounds and boring font. When I scroll down, however, I see the tag cloud, and so much jumps out at me! Tag clouds are the informational x-rays of your site, of your content, and of your brain! I wouldn’t hide this. We feature it front and center on our site – DomainStick.com. It is critical for what we are trying to convey. I think you need it up high – I would switch it out with your twitter postings. I used a customized widget plugin I bought through theme forest – code canyon. It lets you put stuff wherever you want.

I’m a movie buff, I love bananas, and I love monkeys! Great site and thanks for sharing.

Robert

Sorry, one more note. Half of your tag line is a repetition of your site’s name. This is redundant. I would also spell out the entire name and not use the @ sign – it just seems a bit informal for the site’s name.

The phrasing might be off too. Holidays at India sounds a bit awkward. We tend to use “at” before a specific place – holidays at the White House, holidays at our grandmothers, holidays at Disneyworld… I would recommend using “in” for a region or country. Holidays in Canada, Holidays in Austria, etc…

I appreciate the information you are bringing to your visitors, but I am concerned you are not showcasing your content in the best possible way. The main concern is how the high areas of contrast tend to take your eye away from the main content. First, my eye keeps moving toward the advertisement at the top. Second, it goes to the graphic images on the right sidebar – the colors on black are overpowering – and why am I checking out the social network icons? I should be reading your blog! Sadly, the last place I go to is the main content. Visually, the storyline is presented with the least punch. Choosing to use a sidebar and bringing so much visual appeal to it is not be working for you – you may consider using another theme or flip-flopping the areas that have high contrast.

We went with a symmetrical layout when we designed DomainStick.com. The point here was to ensure that focus stayed at the center – on the domain names and logos we are featuring. We also integrated some of the colors and feel with the background image. This is another thing I noted when visiting your site – the gray is SO uninspiring. This is INDIA! The land of colors, smells, textures, etc. I don’t mean to over-orientalize here and present such an essentialist perspective, but this site needs to jump out at you! I would hope to see a gorgeous colorful image, front and center… Watch a great bollywood flick for some inspiration…

Well, these are my thoughts. Hope this helps!

best,

Robert

You have a beautiful, minimalist site. Kudos to you. I’m concerned, however, with the lack of text. You may not be providing enough meat and content for the search engines and for inquisitive minds; I hope you are not sacrificing this for the overall look. There are ways to integrate this elegantly.

One thing you want to do from the outset is examine your site without images so you can see what the search engines are seeing. If you download Opera (free browser) you can turn the images off and you’ll see exactly what the search engine encounters. If you see mostly blank space – this is not good. One thing you can do to rectify this is to use the SEO All-In-One Plug-in (also free) – and make sure you fill in all the blanks and provide a lot of textual content.

I know that as graphic designers, we think of these sites as canvases, and the encroachment of text is treated too carefully too often. I say, don’t be afraid to introduce it – with a quote here or an explanatory blurb there. A carefully written blurb with all the keywords is all you need. We do this on our site – DomainStick.com – at the very top. Graphically, people end up looking at the carousel in motion. This is not the same type of minimalist site, but we did try to keep text to a minimum at the top. Consider this a challenge!

Hope this helps – you really do have a great eye – for composition and color. Hey, wanna design some of our logos? You probably have your plate full….

best,

Robert

As much as I like the content in your site, I find the site’s name and approach very confusing. The unfinished sentence is just difficult for me to take in. I see where you are going with this, but I don’t know if it really works. This is further compromised by the hard to read logo – I don’t think the graphic reel works for you. I found myself looking up at the URL bar to confirm what I was reading. The fact that you further complicate this with another font and line (for the completion of the sentence) is not good. I would prefer it all in one line –

The Event of…The Missing Person!

You have to be really straightforward with a site’s title – and you want people to remember it and leave without a question mark – otherwise all your effort is wasted. We went for a really straightforward in your face approach with DomainStick.com. I want people to remember the name and see it clearly.

Interestingly, one of the domains we are selling – Detailsto.com – reminds me of your site. We acquired this domain thinking it would be an interesting gimmicky thing – Details to come… In the end, however, it is a bit confusing and we haven’t had much luck with it. I know Delicio.us opened the floodgate – but they don’t all work for us.

I know we are living in an age where all the great phrases seem to be taken, and we are inspired to try new things. I think you can work with this if it is done right graphically – Perhaps another graphic approach would be to read The Event of… on the left side, and on the right side, you have the completion of the sentence, but you can change it every 20 or so seconds – like a ticker approach. This might be a way to establish the timeliness that the phrase implies and the many subjects you will be featuring.

I hope this helps!

Robert

Very nice site, but I would suggest getting rid of the vertical scrolling. You end up having to scroll so far down and you almost forget how far down you have gone. I would recommend a navigation system that keeps all the images at the top – either you click on buttons or a tab that make images move horizontally or vertically – but you don’t actually scroll down. I use a horizontal scroll-type platform – a carousel plugin – in my site – DomainStick.com. I have it on automatic slideshow now but it can also remain static. I saw a number of very interesting plugins in Theme Forest – in the Code Canyon section – that you might want to check out.

The only other thing that comes to mind is hierarchy. The top section contains too many small images – It would be great if you used a slider feature with one image presented as the larger visual focal point – and the smaller ones below in a row. You can do the same thing with the videos. Here, however, you have the opposite effect – too many large images and you have to scroll vertically to see each one in its totality. You could present one video and show the others as thumbnails below.

The theme I use – Prestige Light – comes with great slider options and it works with the Next Gen Gallery plugin, which is super popular. Hope this helps. You have some funny stuff there!

Robert

Hello,

I am obviously a newbie here. Can someone please check out my site DomainStick.com and see if I have an encryption problem. I just Theme Forest’s Prestige Light (created by Digital Cavalry). Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

https://www.domainstick.com

thanks,

Robert Alexander

Gorgeous photographs and overall look and feel. The first thing that I would critique is the way the site is shoved to the left. I think it needs more breathing room and your photographs deserve better framing space. I am totally fine with the text, the minimal feel, the black and red straightforward delivery, etc.

Very classy and museum-like. I would suggest rethinking the slider page a bit – it gets chopped up on the right. At first, it makes you feel like you are supposed to resize the page. I used a carousel type slider that works beautifully in terms of centering – check out DomainStick.com. it can be sized and detailed to meet your needs.

The last thing I would suggest is a few more categories and tags to help people identify your work a bit more – this will also help increase traffic to your site.

great work and what talent!

Robert

Where does one get this theme. I like the attention to the gallery layouts. I’ve been using Prestige Light now and enjoy that theme’s use of the Next Gen Gallery plugin, which seems to be super popular. It’s free and very versatile. My site, DomainStick.com, will feature more gallery-like pages. Do you think I would benefit from the Autofocus theme?

thanks,

Robert

Gorgeous work of art. Is there a way to experiment with the slider before I purchase it. I’d love to use it for my DomainStick.com website. Any chance I can advertise it on my site? I’m targeting new businesses and logo designers. The graphic designers would go crazy if they saw this

thanks for sharing,

Robert

Thank you HealthVotes. I guess you were able to look at the Source Code and see all the plug-ins installed that I’m not using? Or do you have x-ray eyes? I am starting to delete the ones that are just sitting there unused. No custom plug-ins here. Is there a way to have the site load up first and then then slider? I did not know one could time it as such. THANKS!

You have beautiful work, but I’m concerned it is jeopardized by the confusing layout. Two many things distracted me as I was scrolling down. The shadow with the fork? Is this a photography or food site? The option to post and reply under the first set of images. Then you switch to a gallery style mode.

I suggest you explore other themes – there are so many gorgeous themes out there for photographers. Try to find something that keeps everyone at the top of the site – and with navigation, pages turn or images slide in an out. The fact that you have to scroll down so much on your site is not helping.

I use the Prestige Light theme sold at Theme Forest. My site is called DomainStick.com. This theme also comes in a dark version which would suit your style. That one in particular comes with hundreds of skins, so you can really customize the theme. Warning: while this is one of the best-selling themes, the guy who created it has not upgraded it to work with WP 3.1. We’re all waiting. I haven’t upgraded as a result. I wouldn’t worry about it – you can read the comment stream and get a sense of the loyal customers who still really appreciate what the theme has to offer.

You have gorgeous work and you should showcase it the best possible way. I love photography and am envious of people who have this type of talent. Do a quick search for Photography themes and find the right match…

best,

Robert

Hello,

Your image slider doesn’t seem to be working. I used a long carousel slider on my site: DomainStick.com. You may consider using something like this. Maybe it’s my browser, but the image on your site appears on the right-hand side.

I think you need colorful graphics running across the top of your site. I read a recent article, which I’m forgetting the title of, about the way many people now search by hovering over the little magnifying lens. If you are using a FireFox browser, you’ll see how this option appears. When one hovers over the magnifying glass, you get a quick preview of the site. In the article, the author used the example of food related websites – he showed how someone searching in this area would see the food sites and be attracted to the thumbnail images with food pics. This made me rethink my site!

Ok, I just remembered the guy – he’s following me on Twitter. His name is Alex Wayo and this is his site. The article where he mentions the food websites is really good. He mentions the actual name of the google search feature with the magnifying lens.

Keep up the good work!

Robert